[Editor's note: Ms. Bindergarten is the pseudonym of a second-year teacher in an elementary school in Queens.]
Last year was my first year of teaching. Reflecting back on the experience I can wholeheartedly say that my kids taught me more than I ever could have possibly taught them that year.
After the first week of school I was convinced I needed a radically restructured master’s program in elementary education. I felt like nothing I had learned in all of the 45 credits at my university—the observation hours, field hours and rigorous testing—had prepared me for what I was experiencing. Here’s a story that I’ll never forget:
My kids were on the “magic carpet” for math, just after “rushing in quietly” from a fire drill. Needless to say we were all a bit out of breath and disheveled from the organized chaos that a fire drill tends to entail. A handful of kids had just used the bathroom and we were trying to get through the day’s lesson in counting backwards from five.
Reading Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed to the class, I suddenly sensed the unmistakable smell of feces. Silently fighting the foul odor, I told myself that kids this age pass gas all the time and that I would have to be an adult and get over it (after all, it didn’t seem to phase anyone else on the carpet).
But it was really, really bad. All I could think about was the stench. Time seemed to stand still. I thought to myself, maybe someone stepped in dog poop outside during the fire drill! Yes, that made perfect sense! No harm in doing a quick undercover shoe-check for the culprit. The kids were happy to kick their feet in the air while we sang “If You’re Happy and You Know It” and I investigated the scene.
Well, there it was, or rather there he was: Al, with his poo-covered sneakers all over my carpet (which was suddenly no longer so “magic”). I tried to be as casual as possible, asking the boy if he recalled stepping in “dog droppings” outside or perhaps if anyone else noticed this happening. Al shook his head no, no, no—this didn’t happen outside. The problem was in the bathroom right down the hall!
I couldn’t believe this story—I mean, how could a dog possibly get by the security guard downstairs? I stuck my head out of the door and asked the prep teacher down the hall to cover my class for a minute while I checked out the situation in the boy’s bathroom.
I opened the door and there it was, clear as day. How could I have been so naïve? Human feces on the floor of the boy’s bathroom. I wished there was a dog in there to take the blame, but it was far worse than I imagined: another boy had pooped on the floor and poor Al stepped right into it.
Eventually the mess was cleaned up and an interpreter called Al’s mom to ask if she could bring in new shoes for her unlucky little boy. At the end of the day all I could do was try to put the experience into perspective: in kindergarten, as in life, “shit happens.”
